The Beijing Motor Show is a big car event in China. Companies use it to show off new cars and new tech they’re working on.
Concept
safety centers
“Safety centers” typically refer to facilities used for crash testing, safety engineering, and evaluation of vehicle systems. When an automaker highlights these, it usually means they’re investing in validating occupant protection and safety performance before cars reach customers.
Term
photo stick
A photo stick is a small gadget you plug in to move your pictures off your phone or computer. The ads make it sound automatic, but sometimes it misses files or doesn’t work well with certain devices.
A Ford Sierra is a Ford car model. Here it’s being talked about because a version of it was used in Australian touring car racing, so it has a motorsport connection.
This is a big Australian race series where cars based on normal models compete. When someone mentions it alongside a specific car, it usually means that car was part of that racing scene.
Cloud storage means your photos are saved online, not just on your phone. If your phone gets broken or stolen, you can still get your photos back by logging into your account.
Backup and redundancy mean you keep your important stuff in more than one place. That way, if one thing fails (like a phone), you still have a copy somewhere else.
Concept
outsource it
Outsourcing is when you hire someone else to do a job for you. Instead of trying to learn everything yourself, you pay a specialist to handle it.
Company
geeks to you
They’re talking about a service that sends a tech person to your place to fix the issue. It’s like calling someone who can handle the problem on-site instead of trying to solve it yourself.
Concept
meta verified
Meta Verified is a paid verification feature for Facebook/Instagram accounts. They’re bringing it up because people have had problems with accounts being shut down, so they’re discussing ways to protect or stabilize access.
This sounds like your TV isn’t getting a strong enough signal. When the signal is weak or changes, the picture can glitch, go green, or keep starting and stopping.
Digital TV can look really weird when the signal isn’t good—like the picture breaks up or turns green. It’s because the TV can’t decode the signal reliably.
“Mr. Antenna” is referenced as a local franchise that can test antenna power and direction. The segment frames it as a practical service for diagnosing reception problems and recommending whether to boost or replace equipment.
A booster is like turning up the signal so your TV can get it more clearly. But if the antenna isn’t positioned or working well, a booster won’t fix the root problem.
Sometimes the TV signal doesn’t go straight—it bounces off things like buildings and trees. If the surroundings change, those bounces can make the signal less reliable.
“Antenna cable” is the coaxial (RF) cable that carries the TV signal from the antenna to the receiver. Replacing it can fix issues caused by damage, poor shielding, or signal loss over older/low-quality cable.
The iLoad is a van made by Hyundai. It’s designed to carry people or goods, and it has rear doors that open like panels (often called barn doors). That door style can make loading and unloading easier, especially when you’re working with bulky items.
It’s a camera on the back of the vehicle that shows a live video feed to help you see what’s behind you. It makes reversing safer when your rear view is blocked.
That’s the mirror you use to look at what’s behind you while driving or reversing. They wanted to replace it because their van setup made the view through the mirror not very useful.
Wolfbox makes aftermarket car cameras and related gear. Here, the speaker bought the unit from Wolfbox directly and got an email check-in after purchase.
Car
Wolfbox 900 Pro
The Wolfbox 900 Pro is a camera system that mounts like a rear-view mirror. It helps you see behind you using a screen, and it can be installed by a shop if you don’t have time.
Night view refers to how well a camera performs in low light, often using sensors and image processing to reduce blur and improve contrast. The host specifically mentions being able to read number plates from the front and rear cameras, which is a key real-world metric for usefulness.
A digital rear-view mirror uses a camera feed displayed on a screen instead of (or alongside) a traditional optical mirror. It can improve visibility and add features like switching views or adjusting framing automatically.
They’re talking about cameras and how reflections can happen. If you’re using a camera in the car, glare from the dashboard or windshield can show up on the screen.
The Dacia Duster is a small SUV, which means it’s built for everyday driving but with extra space and a higher driving position. People talk about it because it’s usually priced lower than many other SUVs. It’s often chosen by drivers who want something practical without spending a lot.
A chamois is a soft absorbent cloth traditionally used to dry cars after washing. The host says they don’t carry one, which is why they’re considering air-blowing water droplets instead.
Hearing aids are small devices you wear to help you hear better. They’re usually made for your specific hearing needs, so they can cost more than cheaper options.
Apple’s hearing test is a tool on your phone or device that can give you a rough idea about your hearing. It’s not a doctor’s full hearing exam, but it can be a useful first check.
Loop three earplugs are meant to make loud or noisy environments more comfortable. They can help reduce background noise, but they won’t “fix” hearing problems the way a hearing aid can.
LIVE
I was God's mate. I spoke to you on the Tuesday. Thursday afternoon there's this lovely courier
man at me back door with a parcel for me. All I know is we've been 24 hours mate. You had it sorted
after five weeks of hell, raising hell. Mate, I can't thank you enough.
Join the conversation. Head to eftm.com and click Ask Trev. Hoping Australians would
take questions for over 15 years, the EFT and podcast with Trev along. Real Australians,
real questions every week. You can text Trev now thanks to Vodafone on 047-657-657.
Thank you for listening. Great to have you company live from China. No, not really. I'm recording the
week before I go to China, but I am in China right now with Geely, the auto group looking at
the Beijing Motor Show and also some of the safety centers. So just I guess prove how much effort
they're putting into things like that as you would hope from a large car market like China now.
So follow me on socials if you want to see that stuff now at Trev along on Tik Tok,
at Trev along AU on Instagram. I assume I'm doing some work while I'm over there and posting.
But yeah, that's how you can follow what I'm up to. And I'd love you to follow me at any time.
I've also got little communities going on Instagram and Tik Tok. Not only a few hundred
people, but it's kind of a nice little way to get kind of direct messages from me. So
on Instagram, if you go to my profile, you'll see there's kind of a threads link as well as
what looks like two conversation bubbles and says Trev along. And when you go in there,
it's just got links and different things that I've sent. So yeah, you can, you can,
it's kind of like a damn situation. Or if you prefer, there's a WhatsApp channel you can,
you can send, you can jump in the channel there and get those messages. And also on on Tik Tok,
there's a, I don't know what they call it on Tik Tok. Let me look it up right now.
Trev along tech plus. So if you go to my profile, Trev along down before the, all the videos and
things, there's a thing that says Trev along tech again, it looks like two conversation bubbles.
So you can join there and there's sometimes some polls or messages and things there. It's just
another way of communicating as well as the videos and things that are going on. But yeah,
bit of fun. Easy, easy, easy. Yeah, big, big week last week, another big week this week and
all the details are up at EFTM.com. If you want to follow all along, you can, yeah, you can do
that. We'd love to have your company install the EFTM app on your iPhone, install the widget,
even on Android. Now the widgets are beautiful. It's, it's big, but you'll see the latest story
there and you can scroll through them as well. And of course on the phone, on the app, you can also
win prizes each and every week on the EFTM app. So we've got everything for you. I mean, it's a
community. We've got you covered. We've got you covered folks. If you have any interesting cars
or tech or lifestyle, we've got you covered. Obviously, we focus a bit more on tech here,
but on the EFTM podcast, but happy to talk anything with you at all. So feel free to get
in touch at any point you like. 0477657657. Thanks to Vodafone. You can send a text and
that'll come straight through to us. Producer Rob will line you up. We'll have a chat on the show
next time I record. WhatsApp is the same deal. So we'd love to hear from you. Whatever mechanism
you choose to get in touch. Just do it, folks. Just get in touch.
Helping Australians with tech questions for over 15 years. The EFTM podcast with Travel on.
Great to have you company and happy to help wherever I can. 0477657657. If you want to
get in touch, send me a text or a WhatsApp. Brianna is on the line today. How are you doing?
Not too bad. Thanks for having yourself. Really good. What can I do for you?
Just inquiring about a photo stick. I've seen things along the lines. You can randomly put into
any device to get downloaded or your old photos. This is mythical. It doesn't exist.
You've seen these ads on Facebook and Instagram. I saw that, haven't you? Yes, they're rubbish.
Looking for legitimate source. They're rubbish, basically. Look, it is a genuine product,
which works not bad, maybe, on a Windows computer. But in reality, no, they're not great.
I've tried a couple. Literally, the photo stick brand had a little USB-C one. I tried it for a
while, but it just wasn't finding everything. In the end, I was manually moving my photos around.
So what's the problem you're trying to solve? Where are your photos now?
Oh, I've got about seven or eight different old phones and I don't know what's transferred to
new phones along the way and various things. I thought I'd try to do a bit of a cleanup and
get them all in one spot. Android or iPhone? Android.
And they all work still? You can charge them all and get them going again?
I believe I would be able to, yes. Wow. Why have you got so many phones you're holding on to?
They just kind of live in the cupboard, get a new one, put those in the cupboard.
All right. Well, let's do the right thing here. Let's set a task for, you know, let's call it
May and June. So let's, by June 30, let's solve this problem, right? Because then on June 30,
you can donate those phones to Mobile Master and have them recycled and, you know, move on.
Keep one old phone because you never know when your current phone dies or breaks or whatever,
but let's put the rest, not in landfill, but recycle them probably, right?
But in the meantime, before you do that, we've got to get those photos off. So the good thing is,
I reckon your solution is best placed in Google Photos.
Google Photos is probably already installed on most of those phones. So power them all up,
get them all on your Wi-Fi, make sure they're all still logged into your Google account,
and do an app update to make sure that you've got the latest version of Google Photos.
And then in Google Photos, so I'm using an Android phone right now,
if I open up Google Photos, in the top right hand corner, there's like your profile pic.
Yeah, so it's your personal profile, so showing what account you're logged into.
Once you're in there, you choose, you know, backup. It'll either say it's backed up or
it's backing up or it's not selected to backup. So you need to set it to backup all these photos.
And what it'll do, and it won't take too long, like we're talking a day or two.
So I've given you two months, you should be able to get it done.
It'll start sending all those photos up into the cloud. Now, the good thing is,
because they're all Android phones, because you'll use Google Photos and all of them,
it will essentially synchronize also between them all. So what'll end up happening is they'll
all have all the photos, including your current phone. So you'll do this on your current phone as
well. And you'll then be able to check. And so one of the things before you do all this is just
go into each phone and see if there's a photo that you can kind of recognize from each one that
you'll go, well, if that one's in the system, then I know we're backed up properly. That's
it's kind of your your file safe to make sure that that phone is properly backed up.
But once you turn on Google Photos and you enable that backup, it says to you, you know,
like 2000 left to go or 1000 left to go or two, two left or whatever it might be.
And so it'll say backup complete. Like if I open mine now and I took some photos this morning,
it says backup complete. Big green tick done. And it's the smartest, safest, easiest way to go.
It's a great system for searching and sorting photos. You'll never look back. It's so good.
Google Photos is amazing. Sounds like I've got something to do for the next couple of months.
I don't think it'll take a couple of months now that I think about it. You've just got to
you've really just got to dedicate yourself to go anywhere and do it on a rainy weekend.
Well, when there's a rainy weekend, just pull all those phones out, set them on charge.
An hour later, they're all charged. Turn them all on, set them on Wi-Fi. It's not it's not
actually going to take too long at all. And then just leave them charged so that they can do the
upload and they just need to be connected to Wi-Fi to do the upload. That's all. Sounds great.
Wonderful. Enjoy. Thanks very much. No worries. Thanks for getting in touch. Cheers.
If you've got a tech question, get in touch with me. Oh, four, double seven, six, five,
seven, six, five, seven. I did have someone reach out. I apologize. I don't have the text in front
of me. But I remember, see, I see all the text messages. I just don't directly reply to them.
Producer Rob does that to keep it, you know, organized. And it may have been an app message.
Who knows? But I saw a message saying, why do you always talk about Google Photos?
Apple's photos is just as good. It also recognizes faces and things and yada, yada, yada. Yeah,
it does. I don't think it does as good a job. Now, I use an iPhone 40, 50% of the year.
And when I open the photos app on iPhone and I go to people, it doesn't recognize anywhere near as
many people as what my Google Photos does. It doesn't find people as well as Google Photos does.
I just, I'm telling you, from my experience, Google Photos is phenomenal when it comes to
actually finding things in photos, et cetera. It's really, really good. Apple's good. Don't
get me wrong. It's great. And you can now search contextually for random things, you know, like
a car or a boat or whatever. But I think you can search far better for things on Google Photos.
So yeah, that's just my personal experience. And that's not as, that's not as an Android fanboy.
That's someone who would prefer to be platform agnostic, which is why I'm able to switch so
easily from iPhone to Android at any time of the year. Because I know that, so I took a photo
yesterday. I posted it to last week. It was actually because this show is coming out later. But
I took a photo of a Benson and Hedges Ford Sierra from the Australian Turing Car
Championship. And it was Tony Longhurst and Thomas Mazira. I got this cool model car and
I posted it on Instagram. Now I'm looking at that photo. I took it on the Oppo Find in
6, right? And if I now open up my iPhone and look at my settings, it's now like, okay,
I'm not fully backed up. But then I open up and I can see, I can see the photo I took this morning
at Channel Line, as well as yesterday when I picked up the car, as well as the Benson and
Hedges Tony Longhurst car. So I'm seeing it in Google Photos on the iPhone. Because it's like
that single source of truth. It's, that's where I'm really looking into the cloud. And I think
that's the challenge for people is you think about your photos being on a device. You're better
off thinking of your photos as being in the cloud and your device as a window into the cloud.
Someone could come and smash all my phones. And all I gotta go do is go to any computer
or get any phone, log on to Google Photos and I can see all my photos. That's, that's the backup
and redundancy that you want for something as important as photos.
You're listening to the EFTM podcast.
Great to have you company. Get in touch, 0457, 657, 657. Dixie's trying to tell you that right
now, but I'll do it for him. 0457, 657, 657. Marilyn's on the line, can they, Marilyn?
Hello, Trev, how are you? Very well. We spoke a little while ago. You're an accountability coach.
You had questions. You had a website to build. I'm keeping you accountable now.
Where are you at? It's been a month or more. Yes, the website is live, ready to go.
Wow, you've done it. Yes, it's up. What's it called? Beunstoppable.com.au.
Beunstoppable.com.au. There it is. Be unstoppable with Marilyn. So accountability is what you do
and you've held yourself accountable. Was it tough? It was a learning experience. I've got to say
that building websites is not my thing, so then I decided to outsource it. Why not? Do you know
what I say? I say this to my wife all the time. That's not my skill. Pay someone. What are we
doing here? Why am I trying to learn to do something that I'm too old to learn? I'm sure
in 15 years, 20 years, if I retire, I'll be like, oh, I might learn how to make wood things or
something, whatever. But right now, I'm doing okay, and I can afford to pay a plumber to come
and fix the toilet or whatever it might be, you know? So if it's not your skill, look, it's funny
thing because I get this a lot in talk back. You have people who go, I've got a problem and
how do I fix it? And I'm like, you know what? Just call geeks to you. They come to your house
and they fix it for you and you pay them. But then they're like, oh, and then I say to them,
so if your water was leaking from your shower onto the floor, would you just, you know,
hope that someone will do it for free over the phone? No, you'll call a plumber. It's what you do.
So what's the goal now? Is that something that you can share then to grow the business and
obviously try and get more clients? Clients, absolutely. So I've got the website. I've got my
Facebook business page, Instagram. I'm building my LinkedIn profile literally today. This morning,
I've been working on it. So yeah, getting the word out there. Are you thinking about
paying for meta verified because of all the dramas that have existed in recent months with
meta accounts, Instagram or Facebook being shut off and kicked off for, you know,
breaching terms, which people don't know what they've done, but it costs them business because
they're the only way to really assure yourself is to be paying meta verified. Do you worry about
that? Do you think about that? I do. And I am verified, but not the paid subscription. Yeah.
But I have been verified by them, but I'm in a hurry about doing the paid bit.
I think the thing to look, if you're not going to buy meta verified, which is, you know, I'm paying
one of them 40 bucks a month or something, then you need to go, you need to do two things. You
need to be super strong on security. So you need to make sure that you have enabled every level
of security, not just a two-factor authentication, but using an or the app or something like that.
So two-factor authentication fully. I would make sure that you, if you've got a friend or a business
partner or a partner in life or someone who can help you, who's super trusted, not just, you know,
a close friend, make them an administrator of your Facebook page as well. So then if something
happens to your personal account, you can still get into the business page. That's a good thing to do.
And then the other thing is just be really neutral about the things you're posting. So there can be
no questions about whether or not you're, you know, breaching any of their weird terms of conditions
and those kind of things. So I'm sure you'll be fine on that account, but it's just, it's the small
risk. But it feels like also the good thing is with a website, your social media doesn't
become the sole input to your business. So if meta and Facebook, if Instagram and Facebook
didn't exist or stop working tomorrow, you could still rely on Google search and things like that
to hopefully people find your business. Because I mean, I didn't check this, but
how much accountability coaching is there out there?
Not much. Not much. It's a fairly new niche kind of thing. You can find them around. There's a
the structure I use of like a weekly short check in. I have not found anywhere.
I feel like LinkedIn's your best growth opportunity because if you dedicate, I don't know, twice a
week, an hour of your day to, you know, essentially giving away some of your secrets, right? So what
you're doing is you just rather than my biggest pet peeve on LinkedIn is people that have, it's
like clickbait. It's like they want to tell you everything, but then it's like, you got to do
this thing to get that. No, no. It's either stories from clients who said I achieved this because of
this or it's little words of motivation that are the words that need to be, and I said this
recently, I was talking about how I've been mucking around with AI a lot and I've been using a thing
called Claude, which is a different type of AI to chat to BT. And I said to it, I said my biggest
challenge in my life slash business is there's no one here. I'm in this office 50, 100 square
meter space, 50 upstairs, 50 down and it's great. It's a man cave. There's no one here. I can watch
anything on television. I can do any work I want, but there's no one saying, hey, have you written
that article yet or whatever? And I said this to chat to BT or Claude and it said, oh, let's do a
daily check in three times a day, morning, noon and night. I went, oh, great idea. And we created
this great system. The problem is it doesn't check in on me. I've got to check in on myself.
And so I used it for the first two days and since then, do you think I've asked it and not once?
And it's not smart enough. Even though I've asked it all these other questions and ideas,
got it to do these presentations and slides for me. It hasn't gone. And by the way,
how are you going with that review? So it's not even smart enough to do that for me. So I think
you play into that as well. AI or any form of to-do list, apart from at best a push notification,
which we all ignore, how is any of those things keeping you accountable? And that's why
you need someone like you on your side so that every week you have that accountability conversation
and boom, you're off to the races. Well, good on you for getting it done and good luck growing
the business from that point. Wonderful. Thank you very much.
Good on you. I'm very excited. Cheers. Thanks, Trove. Thank you.
No worries at all. Excellent. Yeah, not bad. Not hard. Very manageable and something that
everyone can do. So there you go. You might just find some solace in your own accountability,
folks. Tech, cars, lifestyle. This is the EFTM podcast with Trevor Long.
DC, I'll let you speak that time, mate. Sorry about earlier. Taking your calls.
If you've got a tech question, send me a text or WhatsApp. 047657657. Rodney's on the line.
Good day, Rodney. Trevor, how are you? I'm really good. What can I do for you?
Mate, I work as a manager in a big company and, you know,
fair age person and I run around with, you know, three notebooks and two diaries at a time,
picking up whatever I can when I go to meetings. I have read follows you before and looked at those
digital notepads, but I'm just trying to find, you know, as things change now, what's better ones,
you know, that I can write on that automatically puts it to text, that type of thing or an app.
I bought an iPad thing and okay, that'll do and use notes, but it's just not working the way I
think. Well, last week I had on the show a guy talking about this cool thing he bought called
Pocket AI and I don't know what I spent on it, 200 bucks or something and it arrived and it's
so cool. It's a great little idea. It can clip onto the back of your phone or you can just hold
it in your pocket and then it will record anything you put into it, including meetings.
I don't have meetings and it just, mate, in a week, I just haven't pulled it out of my pocket
and I thought about it. My biggest thought was I pull it out of my pocket and just,
you know, make a note and say, hello, do you remind me to do this? But my challenge is,
it's not then automatically integrating with any other system that I use or won't automatically
email that. I've got to physically go into the phone and open up the pocket app and then,
you know, do stuff. Whereas for you, you're already in that space where you're trying to
replicate a process and actually a voice recording that slash transcription is the
ultimate solution because you just put it on the table and say, I'm just obviously I'm recording
this just for my own note taking. You can probably say that to be polite. But the idea is, mate,
this thing sits in every meeting with you, phone call or meeting and listens and then
provides you with a transcript, which you can then act upon. Now, I haven't tested enough to
know whether or not it gives you action points out of transcripts. But even if it just is a pure
transcript, feed that into chat GPT and say, from this meeting, can you summarize action points
per person or something like that? Right? There's no reason why you shouldn't be harnessing the power
of voice recording, voice transcription and AI to change your life. Like you've just described to me
the perfect place where AI lives. And yeah, you know, think about it in real terms, AI in that
sense replaces the old PA or executive assistant. And what this pocket AI replaces is the old
Dictaphone. Do you remember people used to sit there and remember when I worked with Alan Jones,
he would just sit and dictate letters and memos and then someone else in the other
office, Brian, he would sit there and listen to them and type them. This cuts out that middleman.
And look, we're not we're not crying over that because I don't think, you know,
people are growing up to wanting to be PAs and the A's anymore. Those roles are
very much diminishing. And now an EA is more likely a diary manager more than anything else,
trying to juggle the life of a CEO rather than take notes and, you know, transcribe things.
So back in the day, 30 years ago, you'd get an EA to come to every meeting with you today.
Pocket AI. I think that's what you need. I really, really do.
100%. I mean, sometimes I can get five or six meetings. And like I say, but there's gaps between
them. So I get back to my office, do something, where to put that notepad, wrap something else,
go off there, then I get lost. So that sounds like the go. The details would be great.
I think it's perfect. If you Google Pocket AI, you'll see it very quickly. I feel like it's a very
simple investment, potentially tax deduction, but speak to your accountant.
I'd send you mine, but I'm away for two weeks. So you wouldn't even see it for a while. But if
you don't get one in the next couple of weeks, text me and I'll see if I can send you mine.
But yeah, the simplicity of it is, you know, it's only got one button or not one switch on it,
which is either a call or a normal. So normal is what you want. And I think you just push and
hold the button and go, this is my 9am meeting. And it also has your diary because I keep getting
popups on my phone from the app saying, you know, this meeting is in three minutes and
what are you going to do about it? Like it says to me here, but this app pocket says to me,
good morning. Tuesday moves fast. Keep pocket on you 26 meetings today. And then it says
55 minutes ago, start recording because record talk back callers are starting soon. So it
literally just reminds you to start it. Wow. Wow. That's pretty good. So I'm out. I think you're
all in on it. Super handy. Well, thanks, Trev. All right, buddy. Good luck. And
your life could change and you'll have to report back on it. Okay. I will. I will do. Thanks,
Trev. No worries, buddy. Thanks for getting in touch. Yeah, I mean, I think I feel like it was
Wayne or someone like that last week, but it was, it was an excellent insight. It just isn't for me,
solid impulse for me. But because I don't do meetings, I don't know that it's for me.
And like when I do transcriptions, they're of interviews. So I'm interviewing
such an Adela, the Microsoft CEO this week, it's going to be recorded on camera. There'll
be an audio file. I can just ingest that and have it transcribed. It's easy. So, you know,
yeah, I don't think I have enough meetings to justify pocket AI. But my God, Rodney, perfect.
Perfect. This is the EFTM podcast.
Taking your calls. If you've got a tech question, send me a text 047657657 or you can download
the EFTM app. Abdul's on the line. G'day, Abdul. Good day. How are you? Very well. How can I help
you? Okay. I think I explained my problem because, you know, I couldn't, I have a little bit problem
with, you know, the channel seven. Sometimes when I put the TV on on channel seven, the screen is
crashing. The picture is cut out. Then the screen is turning green. It looks like starting, but
it's stopping again. Yes. So what you have is a reception issue. The signal is not strong enough
for your television. So digital TV does that. It does that flaky kind of pixelated and then it
goes green. It comes and goes. So are you in a house or a unit? House. Okay. So what you need
is an antenna person to come around and test the power and direction of your antenna.
Okay. So Mr. Antenna is a big franchise. They might be in your local area. And what they will do
is they will test the antenna and they will tell you whether they can just put a little booster on
or whether you need a new antenna. Because what happens is the reception changes over time.
New buildings are built, new mobile towers, whole range of different things happen.
And what was fine is no longer fine. But it's a very simple thing to test. And you can ask them
to come at any time and they'll be able to do a test for you about how strong your digital TV
reception is. Okay. All right. So Mr. Antenna is my recommendation. All right.
Okay. Thank you very much for that. All right, Abdul. Good luck with that.
Thank you. Bye. Thank you. See, the challenge is a lot of people say this was working fine,
you know, a month ago. But what happens is it really, it really changes
environmentally. You know, a big tree might have grown finally. But a big building,
a big set of apartments, you know, there's a lot of things that can be built in your area which
make that signal bounce differently, especially if you're living on the fringes of reception.
So that's probably all it is. Not an easy fix. Sorry, can be a very easy fix.
But it's certainly going to cost money because you'll need either a booster,
a new antenna or new antenna cable.
You're listening to the EFTM podcast.
You can text Trev now. Thanks to Vodafone on 0477657657.
Lovely to have you company. If you've got a question, get in touch 047657657.
Phil's on the line today, Phil. Good day, Trevor.
Mate, what can I do for you? We spoke last month, didn't we? It's like producer Rob's on the
follow-up path. You were looking for a dash cam, is that correct? Exactly, exactly. Very specific
though. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Rob's quite diligent, isn't he? He keeps on. I know, he's keeping me
honest, mate. Keep me honest. Don't say anything nice though. Jesus, he gets a massive head.
You might have been crazy. There you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Drop off, alright, Phil. Now, what was the specifics of your need? Because we were not
talking anything basic or obvious. You were you were attending to what's something quite
specialised. What was the need then? Yeah, all I have are, yeah, an iLoad van,
which has barn doors at the back, so no vision through the rear vision mirror, through the middle,
even if you can see through the cargo section. And so I thought, okay, combine the two,
get a rear view camera, because I needed a rear vision camera so that you don't keep
backing into things in a van, you need that vision behind. And why they didn't fit one
into this particular model, I don't know, but they didn't. So, yeah, looking for a dash cam,
I was looking to replace the rear vision mirror. Oh, that's right. You wanted the
real holest bowl of situation. Yeah, just so that it fitted the built. So, yeah,
looked at the Wolfbox 900 Pro, which when we talked about it, you and I sort of shared the
opinion that this sort of looked a bit too good. And why hadn't we heard about it before and all
this sort of thing. So, I was very, very surprised, this unit, free fast ship starting from the
delivery, got free fast shipping. That's good. I think it arrived in two days, three days,
something like that. Yep. And each, there were three boxes involved. The main unit,
which is like a 12 inch rear vision mirror, came in one box. And those were all individually packed
also in their bubble wrap packing to protect them. So, then I opened up the bubble wrap
packing and what was inside was extremely professionally boxed unit. Everything looked
exactly how it should. Everything was styrofoamed or the equivalent of styrofoam in that black
sort of stuff that goes around it. Was it Amazon at the end or was there another retailer involved?
No, it came direct from Wolfbox's site. So, you bought it through Wolfbox's site,
yeah, directly? Yeah, yeah, directly. They had an offer on which I went on and getting that a
look at it afterwards. And I think they always have an offer on, but you get 20 bucks or 30 bucks
off and that sort of thing, which is fine. Yeah, never not 20 or 30 bucks back.
Of course, of course. So, a couple of days later, I got it. Then a couple of days after that,
I got an email from Wolfbox saying, was I happy with everything? So, their follow up was really
good there. And then I got it installed. I didn't have time to install it. I just got so much going
on at the moment. And so, I got an installer to install it. And he installed quite a number of
units. And he just commented to me, he said, where'd you get that? You know, the bloody,
you know, how good the image was and all that sort of thing. So, he was impressed with it as well.
And that's a big call, mate, for someone that sees a lot of them. And so, did he just do the
electrical install or did he help you set up the app? No, he just did the electrical install.
No, the app, the app was very straightforward. Yeah. Well, it connects through Wi-Fi through
that I don't understand. No, I thought it'd be a Bluetooth connection, but it's a Wi-Fi.
No, no. So, Wi-Fi allows you to transmit far more data. So, your phone makes a direct Wi-Fi
connection to the camera or the unit. And then you can download the videos much quicker that way,
basically. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it connected really quickly. And the features in it, you know,
really, you know, quite amazing, you know, and as I said, the image is really, really clear,
you know, if I was driving at night, the night view was good. You can see, you can read the
number plates front and, you know, from the front camera and the back camera. And it alternates,
but you can have on the screen, like the rear vision mirror screen, you can show front view,
you can show back view, you can show split view. So, it does all of those sort of things. And also,
which I didn't know and I haven't tried yet, it does a bit of pan and tilt. Right. So, if you
swipe your finger up the screen, which I should have just tried to mean to go when I was driving,
when you swipe your finger up the screen, it just sort of adjusts the level. Yeah, right.
And when you're doing the reverse, it's the same. It's working for you as a digital rear
mirror now. So, you've got a constant rear mirror digitally. Yeah. And does it, is there any difference
when you're in reverse? Like, does it go in a different mode or that's not programmed or?
Yeah, it does. It goes to, it goes, it switches lower. Right. Yes. Now, a wider view when you're
driving and then a lower view when you're backing. So, as soon as you put into reverse.
From the same camera, there's just one camera down the back? Yeah. Really? That's fascinating.
Very smart. It is. It's one of those things where, you know, you read all the blurb and,
you know, you look at all this and you think, ah, this is all too good to be true. But, you know,
I've not found an issue at all. The only, if you're going to nitpick, the only issue I can find is
there's a little, you can see a little reflection of the dash on the, on the screen when you're
looking in the forward view. Yeah, right. Okay. Which I think, you know, you'll find that with a
lot of cameras to be honest. Yeah, I would think that is exactly right. Well, the other thing you
should do is you should definitely leave a review on their website. I will. I mean, they're obviously
doing their best. They seem to have a lot of customers if, you know, globally, because I can
just look at them and see they're not all Australian. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, definitely,
you should leave them a review because that's, that's important for them to be able to grow that.
And it's a good, it's like, I'm looking at Naga and I want one of those air dusters. I see these
things on TikTok, these high-speed blowers that are handheld, like crazy. So I'm looking at that.
They've got a car maintenance section on their website. I'm thinking, oh, I can get one of those.
Yeah, that's my thoughts too, to look through and see what else they do because if they're doing
a good product or whatnot, you give them a bit of support, you know. Yeah. Like I washed the car
the other week, on the weekend, I took it, we were down in Young and it was, it was covered in
bugs. So I washed it and, but I don't, I don't carry a chamois with me. So it was, you know,
covered in water droplets. And the idea is you can just kind of spray them off with air.
Just dust it off. Happy days. Well, I did that with an air hose. I did that exact thing with an air
hose on my bikes. You know, when you wash a bike, you can never get in. So you just air hose it off
and that works really well. Nice. Nice. Well, mate, good on you. Thanks for the review and
great feedback on Wolfbox. Yeah, no, it was really good. Thanks Trevor. Thanks for the call.
Safe travels. Yep, take care. Cheers mate. Thank you Phil. Yeah, we love hearing what happened
and that's why producer Rob is working hard to track people down after the fact,
so that we can see exactly what you ended up doing.
Thank you so much for listening and thank you for being part of the show. Simon's on the
follow up for me today. We spoke a while back about you were talking about something called
loop earbuds. Remind me and the listeners what it was you were hoping to get from these. What was
the concept? What was the problem you were trying to solve? Well, the loop ear plugs.
I've got a bit of a hearing issue and I was trying to utilize one of their models of their
available types. Quite frankly, I had the misconception that they were going to cut out
certain sort of outer sounds or ambient sounds or whatever the terminology is.
And do we end up working on it? Are we talking about the actual brand called loop ear plugs
or the style from another brand? No, the brand is called loop ear plugs.
Yep. There's about six different types of them that modulate sound.
Once you pop in when you go to bed, they seem to cut out variable sounds. Other ones that focus
here, a conversation. Which ones did you get? Well, my partner bought three different types.
Wow. They're like $100 for three different types of something in there. I used the ones called
Engage 2. And these are the ones that were designed supposedly to focus on the conversation.
Fewer distractions, more connection, they say. Keep speech clear is what they say.
Yeah, there you go. Well, that was the theory. I realized that because of my hearing issue
that they don't assist at all. For persons with normal hearing, I suspect that they do what they
say. But I had the misconception of my anxiety, you know what I mean? If I was having a conversation
in a pub or around a dinner table, it would focus that conversation. But
my hearing is too far gone, I think, for that. I have been using the AirPods Pro 2s
since I spoke to you last and Regig goes around a little bit for the benefit.
However, the loop ear plugs, since I spoke to you and spoke to a few other people about them,
found out a couple of family members have been using them for quite some time.
They pop them in when they go to shopping centers and that sort of thing. It cuts out a lot of that
hum drum, if that's the right word. Yes, the ambience, the background noise.
So yes, I think there are benefits, but not when you step at a post like me.
And so you've gone back to the AirPods Pro 2, but you've done the hearing test again and reconfigured
them. How are you finding them? Again, in most situations, there are benefits,
definitely without a doubt. In other situations, it just makes my hearing more complex. It's hard
to describe it really. But yes, there are definitely benefits in certain situations.
And I'd actively encourage people to use them as a cheaper alternative to enhance your hearing.
So proper hearing aids can be very, very expensive. And at some point, even Apple's not
claiming that they can bring a hearing back at the worst level. So it's a mild hearing,
mild to moderate that they're talking about. So if it gets to the edge of that and higher,
then of course, a medical hearing aid may be required. But just any benefit is a good benefit,
I'm assuming. And I don't have a hearing loss that I'm aware of, especially having done the
Apple hearing test. But I think about it like my eyes. And I lost my glasses for 12 hours on
the weekend. It was like, I can barely read the screen on my phone. So anything's better than
nothing. And that would be the same with hearing. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. But as far
as the loop three earplugs go, I guess, I wouldn't discourage people from trying them.
Because the experience of other people has been quite positive. But not if you're trying
to enhance your actual hearing, they don't work. So it sounds like from anecdotal advice and what
we hear online, it sounds like they're great for people with good hearing to maybe cut some of
the ambience. But for people with a hearing challenge, you're not going to get any positive
effect from the loop earbuds at this point. So there you go, solid review, mate. You've nailed it.
All right, well done. Cheers. Thanks very much. Good on you, mate. Thanks for reporting back,
mate. I appreciate it. All the best. Cheers. Good on you, no worries at all. Yeah, I suspected
that. That's kind of what I suspected would happen. But you know what, we know now. We know now for
sure. Tech, cars, lifestyle. This is the EFTM podcast with Treve Long. You can text Treve now
thanks to Vodafone on 0477657657. Great to have you company. Thank you for listening,
all show. And let's do it all again real soon, because that's what we do. We love talking to
you about tech. And we love hearing from you, most importantly. So keep the, keep the texts
coming in, keep the emails coming in, and just get in touch however you choose. And we'll do it
all again next week here on the EFTM podcast. Shout out to producer Rob for pulling it all together
and to Claude who's doing just as good a job. I mean, it's head to head, it's neck and neck
in terms of assistance that I'm getting. Neck and neck. That's going to really upset producer Rob,
just so you know. Especially because he put me on to Claude. So what am I going to say? Claude's
by anthropic shares. That's what I think. He's doing a very good job. Shout out next week folks.
Join the conversation. Head to eftm.com and click Ask Treve.
About this episode
A listener gets practical advice for rescuing photos from a pile of old Android phones, with Trev steering her away from gimmicky photo sticks and toward Google Photos as the best cloud backup and search tool. The episode also checks in with Marilyn, who has launched her accountability coaching website and is now focused on growing through social media and LinkedIn. Other calls cover Pocket AI for meeting notes, fixing flaky Channel 7 reception with an antenna tech, a strong review of the Wolfbox mirror dash cam, and a reality check on Loop earplugs for hearing support.
Keeping each other Accountable, Marilynne is back, and so are other callers with their feedback!
Plus Digital TV issues for Abdul
And Rodney might be the perfect candidate for the Pocket AI - perhaps?
Be part of the show via SMS 0477 657 657
